Spit on a Stranger
by TheShoelessOne
Summary: It wasn't Unification Day. Mal hadn't picked any hooligan's pocket yet. They had just finished a rather successful job and had decided to celebrate. So, there seemed to be no reason to start a fight in this particular bar. Oneshot, Rayne.


**Spit on a Stranger**

It wasn't Unification Day. Mal hadn't picked any hooligan's pocket yet. They had just finished a rather successful job and had decided to celebrate. The attitude of the crew was overall amiable and agreeable. So, there seemed to be no reason to start a fight in this particular bar.

Of course, this was Mal's crew, and it was inevitable that they would find a way to start one.

The night started off innocuous enough. The bar was situated in the middle of the dusty rim town, thus offering a central location to those out on leave. Everyone seemed to have a different and personal reason to spend their hard-earned coin. Jayne's choice was simple: booze and women. Since this rock didn't seem to have a legitimate (or _clean_) house of pleasures, Jayne was forced to choose the former. Simon, obviously trying to curry some favor, offered to take Kaylee out to dinner on his own money, to which she obviously acquiesced. And, somehow, Mal had been wrangled into sitting River. As mean an old man he claimed to be, he was an awful pushover.

The three mismatched crew members entered the bar's swinging doors to the musty smell of alcohol and sweat, something that made River's lip curl up. Jayne sauntered up to the bar, ordered a tall glass of the house special and proceeded to ignore everyone. He'd failed to notice that Wash and Zoe were also sitting in the smoky bar, hands clasped across a small wooden table near the bar. Wash looked up and waved with his free hand as he caught Mal's eye.

"One big happy family," Mal sighed with a roll of his shoulder. He guided River over to one of the stools in front of the bar, where he held a single finger toward her face. "No moving. We're outta here in two shakes, and I don't want you wanderin' off, _dong ma_?"

"Understood," River said glumly, looking at her dangling feet. "She's a solitary stone."

"Right," Mal said without really hearing. He, too, leaned over the bar and copied Jayne's order. With that, he took the drink and joined Zoe and Wash at a table meant for two. In the back of the bar, a guitar and fiddle duo started up a deceivingly simple tune. A few shouts of recognition went up, and someone started stomping his foot to the beat. This, of course, got the whole bar going.

Sitting with a stool between them, Jayne and River were silent. She sat twiddling her thumbs, as if she found some deeper meaning to the mindless movement. Jayne threw the glass back in hopes that it'd numb a few brain cells. His foot mindlessly waggled to the beat of the increasingly faster fiddle song.

"How the hell," he said finally as he took another long drink, "we end up with _you_?" He didn't look at her when he said it, but she knew it was for her. She twisted a piece of her hair on her pointer finger, leveling her gaze straight at him in response. She wasn't afraid to look.

"Captain isn't as bad as he wants us to think he is."

"You're messin' with the wrong bronco if ya want a rough ride," Jayne said with a dry laugh as he raised his glass back to his mouth. After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he continued. "Mal's a gorram pony."

"Ponies can be flighty and unpredictable," River pointed out.

Jayne shrugged one shoulder and ordered another drink. The two lapsed into another silence, with the fast-paced music now building in volume and the shouts of the patrons climbing with it. A few brave souls grabbed a partner and started to dance. Wash, apparently having a few drinks in him himself, grabbed Zoe by the hand and pulled her to her feet to begin an awkward two-step. River tapped her fingers on the shiny wood of the bar unthinkingly.

"Who is the right bronco?" River asked as if she didn't care about the answer.

"Huh?" Jayne asked as he finally looked away from his drink.

"Mal is a pony," she clarified. "Who is the bronco?"

Jayne's laugh was different, deeper and almost self-depreciating. "I'm the meanest son-of-a-whore there ever was." On that, he raised his glass in toast to himself and guzzled a long drink.

The notes of the duo in the back nearly stopped, and excited shouts and calls heralded the start of the climax. The notes were building and playing off of one another, slowly and climbing, climbing.

A glass half-full slid over to River as she stared down at the bar top. She inspected it with a careful eye, then raised her eyes to Jayne. He was drinkless and examining something underneath his fingernail very intently, as if it were interesting.

"Not of age," River said, pushing the drink back toward him with one finger. He shrugged, peering over his shoulder at the occupied patrons.

"Ain't no one watchin'. Hell, y' think that prissy brother 'a yours is ever gonna let ya?"

She pursed her lips in thought, gazing down at the piquant liquid sloshing around inside the glass. She, too, glanced around to check that no one was watching her--or that Simon was secreted away in one of the shadows, ready to pounce--then put the glass to her lips. The rim tasted like alcohol, and the bitter remnants of Jayne. Without another hesitation, she mimicked Jayne by tossing her head back and taking a large swallow of it. She shuddered at the taste at first, which made Jayne's shoulders shake with laughter. She could barely hear him over the sound of the band--they'd added a loud drum and an upright bass.

"Awful!" She said over the crowd, wrinkling her brow at the offensive stuff. Despite this, she took another long drink to wash the first out of her mouth. "Fermented hops, a living and breathing drink to murder valuable brain cells!"

"Hell yeah," Jayne said, finally grinning.

She finished off the glass and slid it back over to Jayne. He held it up to the bartender to fish some more from him. When he turned back to the girl, she was holding her tongue out and looking green. He could only laugh in response.

"You don't gotta drink if--"

She simply held out her hand, looking determined. Jayne took a long swig before her and slid the glass over to her waiting fingers.

They'd shared another two drinks after that one, and the band had launched into its old-time favorite, something with a loud and clanging cowbell. River's tongue had loosened, and she seemed to have no end which she could meet. Jayne, while not necessarily paying attention to the babble coming from her mouth, never interrupted her.

While the band tremeloed to it's high point, a large burly fellow appeared out of nowhere to lean on the bar between them. River was stuck with the drink.

The man was almost completely bald, and his dome shone with sweat in the yellow lights above the bar. All Jayne could see was his back. River had the misfortune of looking him in the face. He had small brown eyes that were almost black in the dim lighting. There was an old scar from his hairline down to his left upper eyelid, and three-day-old stubble flecked on his slightly crooked jaw. He smelled like he'd been sweating alcohol all night, and he obviously confused River's sneer of instant disgust for a piqued interest.

"Hey there, girlie," he said in a thick voice, like he was speaking through a screen. His overly-large body blocked Jayne from view completely. "Can I buy ya a drink?"

"Perfectly fine with this one," she said, clutching Jayne's glass close. The alcohol was having an unforeseen effect on her ability to read other people, and she blinked a few times rapidly to clear the fuzz from her mind's eye.

"S'almost gone, that one is," he responded, nodding at the glass and therefore the breasts she'd clutched it close to. His thoughts were dangerous and sticky, and they coated her like lukewarm syrup.

"No," she said firmly, wanting nothing more than him and his thoughts to leave her. She couldn't hear _anything_ outside those oppressive, seething thoughts, and for a moment she had a hard time extracting her thoughts from tangling with his in her mind.

"C'mon," he breathed pressingly, "just a drink."

"No," she said again, and made ready to move off of the barstool. The stranger's hand snapped out and grabbed her firmly by the wrist. River gasped, and as an instant reaction, she arched her neck back and spat directly into his face.

His reaction was almost as swift. His hand flew out of nowhere and backhanded River across the cheek, which sent her to the ground with the drink flying into the crowd.

Not an second passed before the man found that someone had grabbed him suddenly by the collar, and he spun to see who had interrupted him. Jayne wasted no time talking as he smashed his fist hard into the stranger's face, rewarded by the sight of red blood from the man's broken nose. The bald stranger stumbled backward and fell, landing near River on the ground.

The music stopped suddenly at the meaty crunch Jayne's fist made against the man's face. River looked up with a gaping mouth at the man that towered over her attacker. Jayne cracked his knuckles fiercely, backlit and looking to her like some glorious savior.

"We ain't done yet," Jayne growled as he dove down to grab the man again by his collar, bringing him stumbling to his feel.

"I di'nt know she was your girl!" the man pleased, the lower half of his face red with his own blood.

"_Bi zui_," Jayne snapped, glaring hard. "I said we ain't done yet." WIthout another word, Jayne punched the man again, and once more, sending him to the floor a second time. Once grounded, Jayne placed a well-aimed kick at the man's side. The stranger groaned and rolled over.

River stared up at Jayne, and for a moment, he stared back. He offered his hand, which she took to lever herself off the ground.

"You all right?" he asked.

She didn't have time to answer. Chairs scraped the floor as men jumped to their feet, collectively incensed. It seemed that Jayne had picked the wrong man to assault. Without asking or telling, Jayne pushed River behind him, back into her barstool. As the men surrounded him in a quick semicircle, River watched as Jayne bared his teeth like a protective guard dog. No... He wasn't a bronco; he was a bull, and now they were getting the horns.

"Jayne!" Mal called irately from behind the growing crowd of men that wanted to beat the snot out of his merc.

"In a minute, Cap'n!" Jayne shouted back.

He threw the first punch. In a flurry, they surrounded him and pounded away. Mal jumped out of his chair and was there in an instant, pulling men off of Jayne. The merc appeared from within the mass of brawling bodies, his big fists swinging and felling a man each. Zoe was off the dance floor, a barstool in her hands to aid her captain.

Wash, drink heavy in his system, thought it wise to stand up to a man twice his width in muscle. The pilot puffed out his chest and held up twin fists as opposition. He was thrown aside without a second glance.

Jayne slammed a man's head into the bar and moved on to another poor soul, who fell to the ground nursing a cracked jaw. Mal had disposed of two more, looking more angry that his man had started a brawl more than anything. Wash had taken the smarter route this time and hid under a table with a swelling black eye.

They'd thinned the crowd to five men, one of which suddenly came up from behind and smashed a large glass bottle over Jayne's head. The merc's eyes blinked once, then rolled back in his head as he collapsed. River's eyes went scary-wide, and without a second thought, launched herself off the barstool. In the same motion, she arced her leg up with the grace of a dancer and clobbered Jayne's attacker in the base of his skull with her foot.

She crouched on the ground beside him as Mal and Zoe were left to finish the fight he'd started. His bottom lip was split and bleeding, as was the wound on his head where the bottle had struck him. He looked dizzy and only half-conscious when she leaned down over him.

"You awright?" he asked again, words slurred and eyes half-lidded.

"Lied," she said as she cradled one of her hands against his cheek.

"Wha?" he replied simply.

"Not a mean old man," she clarified, her eyes soft. "Knight in shining armor."

"He shouldn't 'a hit ya," he said in return.

"_Jayne_ hit me. Backhanded."

"Yeah, well," he closed his eyes to stop the bar from spinning, "you cut on me." After that pause, he seemed to gain some lucidity, and only then seemed to notice her hand gentle on his cheek. "... 'Sides," he began, but he couldn't finish. But the look in his eyes was enough.

She didn't think it through, but it was too late to stop herself. She leaned down to press her lips softly against his, just barely. Lifting her head only slightly, she watched his eyes worriedly. He stared back, his mind quiet. Then, as the fighting around them finally dimmed, he sat up slightly to lean on one elbow, and she heard his voice rumble lowly against her.

"Do that again," he told her, flicking his eyes to her mouth and back. She smiled brilliantly as she complied. A pleased little thrill passed though her as his hand cupped the back of her neck to pull her in further. She tasted the blood on his lip, in his mouth. She tasted like cheap alcohol and something sweet he couldn't put his finger on. He deepened the kiss, hoping to find out.

Mal and Zoe collected themselves as the last two thugs ran through the swinging front doors and out of their lives. Mal shook out his fist, testing the strength of his fingers. Zoe propped up the barstool and helped her husband out from under the table. Mal's permanently furrowed brow sank even further as he found the missing members of his crew tangled with one another on the ground by the bar.

"Jayne!" Mal roared.

Jayne held up his pointer finger from where it'd been cradling the back of River's neck, and his muffled voice replied: "In a minute, Cap'n."

As Simon patched Jayne up, his own date cut short by the brawl, Jayne watched the girl across the room with half a smirk on his face. She held a cold-pack to her cheek, smiling back in her soft and pretty way. She could read his thoughts loud and clear then, just as he wanted her to.

_Worth it. So worth it._

* * *

AN: Okay, so I know I should be working on Zodiac and Spook, but these oneshots just keep popping up, and they're ideas that wouldn't really work in either of those stories, so I have to write them... or the plot-bunnies will kill me in my sleep. Yeah. Anyway, this has another Nickel Creek title (when will I stop the madness?). But srsly, guys, if you're getting sick of me spamming the Firefly page with my Rayne obsession, tell me. If it's the opposite, thanks much for reading, and leave me some love! I LOVE ALL YOU GUYS, and remember to stay awesome!_  
_


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